Illusory attack!?!

The sun was shining brightly over the playground of the Konoha Ninja Academy.

Unlike the gloomy and oppressive atmosphere of Training Ground 44, this place was filled with shouts and the crisp clatter of wooden Kunai colliding.

The children of the academy were practicing basic sparring under the guidance of their taijutsu instructor.

A pale, slender figure walked slowly to the edge of the playground, immediately drawing everyone's attention.

"Lo, Lord Orochimaru!"

The taijutsu instructor, who was busy guiding his students, saw the newcomer and his face instantly revealed a mix of awe and nervousness. He hurried over with a trot and bowed respectfully.

"No need for formalities." Orochimaru's voice was flat with a hint of raspiness. He nodded slightly, signaling the man to relax. "I am just here to see the children. After all, they are the future of the village."

His demeanor was gentle and elegant, and his golden snake-like pupils even held a trace of the warmth an elder might show a junior, leaving the instructor flattered and causing him to straighten his back immediately.

Orochimaru's gaze swept slowly across the playground, finally landing on a black-haired boy who was resting on the sidelines due to exhaustion.

He walked over, crouched down beside the boy, and gently patted his head. "You are a classmate of Sawada Hiroki, aren't you?"

The boy clearly hadn't expected that this ninja, whom even his own teacher respected so much, would take the initiative to speak to him. He nodded nervously, "Ye, yes."

"Can you tell me about him?" The corners of Orochimaru's mouth curled into a faint smile, a smile that would make anyone who didn't know him feel as if they were bathed in a spring breeze. "What kind of child is he... usually?"

The boy tried hard to recall, seemingly searching for the right words.

Yet, in his memory, the name Sawada Hiroki was always accompanied by a peculiar sense of blurriness.

It was just that when the name was mentioned, he felt very familiar with it; he knew it was his classmate.

But if he were asked about his personality or what he had done in class, he could never quite pin it down. The only thing worth remembering was probably the fact that he had inexplicably graduated early recently.

"He... is very quiet." The boy thought for a moment and said, "He doesn't really play around with everyone, and he doesn't talk much. But it doesn't feel like he's being ostracized like some of the other students. It's like... he's just simply not interested in those things."

The boy could only describe Sawada Hiroki in this way.

He wanted to say a lot more in detail, but he found he couldn't come up with anything else.

"Oh?" A faint, imperceptible light flashed in Orochimaru's eyes. "He never takes the initiative, and he never causes trouble, right?"

"Yes! That's exactly the feeling!" The boy found resonance and nodded excitedly. "He's like... like a shadow in the classroom. You know he's there, but he rarely does anything that makes you pay special attention to him."

Like a mature spy, a clumsy one who wasn't good at pretending to be a child...

Orochimaru gave his evaluation in his heart.

These were not the traits of an ordinary child; these were things that only adults often did, and specifically those adults who didn't like to be in the spotlight.

It was a bit like... his superior, Shimura Danzō.

Inside the training ground, Hiroki's consciousness was operating at an astonishing speed.

The system's abnormal memory and CPU usage allowed him to immediately rule out the possibility of a physical attack.

Genjutsu—that was the only possibility.

Aside from his own emotional systems that interfered with operations, only something like Genjutsu could disrupt his memory and CPU!

He had no time to hesitate. In the split second of reality, his mind had already issued the most urgent command.

Ctrl+Alt+Delete!

In his consciousness space, the deep blue desktop was instantly covered by a concise and efficient window.

[Sawada Hiroki - Task Manager]

Under the [Processes] tab of the window, lines of data were jumping frantically, and the top line was highlighted by the system in a glaring red, occupying almost all system resources.

|---|---|---|---|

|Hell Viewing Technique.exe | 93%| 3912MB |Running|

|Visual Processing.exe | 2%| 128MB |Running|

|Survival Instinct.sys | 1%| 64MB |Running|

|Consciousness.bat | 1%| 32MB |Running|

|...|...|...|...|

Hell Viewing Technique?! Is that the ninja art that can make people quickly enter the illusion of a beautiful dream!?

That's it!

Sure enough, Orochimaru had used Genjutsu on him! It was even highly likely that Kushina had fallen for the Genjutsu as well!

Hiroki did not hesitate. His consciousness turned into a mouse cursor, and without a moment's delay, he precisely selected the malicious process named "Hell Viewing Technique.exe."

"End Process!"

[Are you sure you want to end this process?]

"Confirm!"

The moment he clicked [Confirm], Hiroki felt the heavy, mire-like resistance in his brain vanish instantly. The world became clear in his eyes once again, and the speed of his thoughts returned to normal.

However, this clarity lasted for less than a tenth of a second.

At the exact moment "Narakumi no Jutsu.exe" vanished from the process list, another brand-new process with a similar name surged to the top of the list with the same overbearing posture, once again maxing out the CPU and memory usage!

|---|---|---|---|

|Hell Viewing Technique.exe | 94%| 3967MB |Running|

|Visual Processing.exe | 2%| 128MB |Running|

|Survival Instinct.sys | 1%| 64MB |Running|

|Consciousness.bat | 1%| 32MB |Running|

|...|...|...|...|

Hell Viewing!?

This is that genjutsu which forces a person to see the most terrifying and fearful sights within their heart!?

How could one Hell Viewing follow immediately after a Narakumi ended!?

Wait...

Hiroki's pupils contracted sharply.

He understood immediately.

This wasn't a single virus file.

This was a persistent injection attack.

Orochimaru was performing real-time genjutsu injection attacks based on his and Kushina's reactions!

Is this the content of the assessment? Hiroki took a deep breath.

Through some method yet to be determined, Orochimaru had established a high-privilege data channel with Hiroki's "system."

As long as this channel wasn't severed, even if Hiroki's hand speed was fast enough to terminate a hundred processes in a second, the opponent could inject a hundred and one new malicious programs the very next second.

Relying solely on the Task Manager was treating the symptoms, not the root cause.

He had to build a new program to block the opponent's attack! Or find the source of the problem, that forced connection established without permission!

He had to find a way to cut this connection first, or... write a firewall.

Just how was Orochimaru using genjutsu on him!?

Hiroki was still pondering.

However, the next moment, he noticed that an inexplicable signal source had connected to his wifi signal at some point.

|Orochimaru-Open-Signal|[Connected]